


But I Was Rapt, Without A Name

by RidleyMocki



Series: Pynch fics [4]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam is a nerd, Blue is exasperated with them, Fluff, Kissing, Liberal use of Italics, M/M, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, long explanations of tarot cards, pronounced coffee drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-11 02:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RidleyMocki/pseuds/RidleyMocki
Summary: There are some things about Adam Parrish that are still mysterious, even to his boyfriend. The way he can look at a mass of cards and find some sort of deeper meaning is among those things. Ronan's happy to learn, though.A cute hang out fic featuring guest appearances from the Gangsey, and entirely too much coffee drinking.





	But I Was Rapt, Without A Name

**Author's Note:**

> Done for Pynch Week 17, to the prompt 'Elements'. When I think of elements I think of tarot cards, and how reading TRC actually finally made me study them and how to read with them, after years of idle fascination. Add the need for some actual plot and you get patient tutor Adam with hopelessly in love and attentive Ronan. 
> 
> Title is from 'Sirensong' by The Cure, which is an awesome freaking song and an awesome band, honestly.
> 
> Thank you a whole great big awful lot for reading! I hope you enjoy it <3

“You bring those everywhere with you now, Parrish?” Ronan stepped onto the back porch and smiled down at Adam where he sat, legs crossed on the wooden decking. Around him were cards. Lots of them. It wasn’t quite the multi-deck spread that could take over a whole table at 300 Fox Way, but it was complex in a way Ronan couldn’t understand, arcing around where Adam sat. 

“Yeah, pretty much” Adam said. He returned Ronan’s smile, so at least he knew he wasn’t intruding. “They help. It’s like free therapy.”

Ronan quirked a brow and dropped down to sit next to him, handing over a coffee cup, its steam catching the yellow light from inside. “Sounds weird.”

They heard Blue yell out from inside the house, “Hey losers! You watching with us or what?” Adam snorted and shook his head. 

“No,” Ronan called back. “Don’t do anything gross on my couch!” And quieter he grumbled, “they probably will now, damn it.”

Adam chuckled lowly, “You gave them _ideas_. Rookie mistake.” 

After Ronan had updated the living room to include an obnoxiously large television and home cinema system, and after the threesome of ambiguous relationship that was Blue, Gansey, and Henry had returned from South America, movie night inexplicably became a regular occurrence. They’d been watching the same show for four hours – some quirky sci fi thing that made Gansey happy because it was set in Wales, and made Blue happy because it had a female lead – but Adam had ducked out twenty minutes ago, and with him went half of Ronan’s interest. 

“So how’s this supposed to therapise you?” Ronan nudged his chin at the cards spread before them. He could see Adam physically bite back the _that’s not a word_ , and smirked.

“Do you really want to know?” Adam said, and Ronan nodded, immediately giving him his full attention. Adam was sometimes reluctant to go on about things that genuinely interested him, worried that it gave other people too much power. He preferred deep conversations on topics from which he was personally detached, because then at least if someone disagreed, it didn’t feel like rejection. But Ronan had been sure to show him from day one of their relationship that he didn’t have to worry about that, here. Adam gave him a small smile. “Well, tarot cards don’t always show the future. They show you possibilities. You ask them a question and they give you one possible answer. It’s when you analyse the answers the cards give you, and how they fit with you and how you react to them, that you get insight. So like–“ he reached out and tapped a card at the top, at the far edge of the spread– “the Three of Cups. I asked what I needed to focus on and this is what they said.”

Ronan leaned over and looked at the card. Three women in long dresses seemed to circle around each other, each had a goblet in her hand that was raised joyously above their heads as though making a toast. “They want you to focus on getting drunk?” 

Adam punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Asshole,” he said to Ronan’s grin. “Look, to me anyway, it’s referring to stuff like tonight, with everyone here.” He looked at Ronan uncertainly, but was encouraged by whatever he found in his face. “There are hundreds of interpretations of every card. For a lot of people they’re as subjective as Rorschach paintings. But for me the Three of Cups has always been about the three women being friends, you know? They’re together, they’re in harmony. And they’re happy. They’ve reached a point where things are good and they can celebrate. So I see it and I think of all of us here, of how good things are. So I should focus on that, on friends and hanging out together. I agree with that card being there because it feels true, for me. But maybe I wouldn’t have made that conscious choice unless I did the reading.”

Ronan nodded, but honestly he was surprised. “That’s a hell of a lot more rational than the way the witches do it.”

Adam grimaced. “Yeah well, they’ve got a better connection to time than I have. When they get an answer it’s definite. But with Cabeswater gone it’s harder for me to do it like that.”

“So you’re just going to be a nerd about it instead?” He nudged Adam’s shoulder, going for levity to get that sad little frown off his face. Cabeswater’s absence was something they all felt. Ronan was working on it. Gratifyingly, Adam stuck his tongue out at him, and laughed into his coffee cup.

“You wouldn’t think it, but yeah.” He said eventually. “You can actually nerd out about this stuff. Tarot is… complicated. Systematic.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhmm. I mean, look.” He pointed to a card labelled ‘The Fool’. “This is the first card in the deck, but it’s an outlier, that’s why it’s marked with a zero. From there you get the twenty-one majors. They show what the Fool has to go through and deal with in life, the kind of stuff everyone has to deal with; fear, imbalance, moral principles. Tarot is a universal narrative, that way. Then you have four suits, all with their own meanings and elements, all with ten pip cards and four court cards. The Aces are the pure energy of the element of that suit, the rest of the pips are different possibilities, and the courts are like characterisations for how those elements work.” Adam turned to check he was still listening, and caught Ronan looking at him heavily.

Ronan listened alright, thought that if he were in a room crowded with raucous people and Adam began to talk, he’d still hear it. But he loved Adam like this, loved his brain and the way it worked to push him ever forward and above everyone else. When Adam let him have a glimpse inside his mind, it was only understandable that Ronan would take a long look. The way his eyes sparked with knowledge pulled at him more than Ronan could explain.

Adam raised a judgemental brow at him, smirking, and Ronan cleared his throat. “Elements?”

Adam frowned for a moment before recalling what he’d been saying. “Oh. Yeah. Wands are fire, and represent creativity–“ he pointed to a card, then another, each one featuring the symbol he explained– “Swords are air, and represent the intellect, rationality. Cups are water, they’re about emotions; how you contain them or how they overflow. And pentacles, or coins, they’re earth. That’s about resources, usually material ones.”

“Right, okay. And that all makes sense? When you do a reading like this?” he gestured to the general sprawl of cards before them, probably half the deck laid out on the wood. 

“More or less.”

Ronan hummed, and drank his coffee, aware that Adam was watching him, mouth turned up at the corners. He didn’t know why so many of their conversations felt like this; like resting something on the edge of a table and watching it teeter. They were always on the edge of something. “Am I anywhere down there?” He nodded to the spread.

He’d meant it teasingly, but Adam suddenly looked a little nervous. He waved at a set of three cards at the lower right edge of the layout, set side by side. “Well, this is your bit.”

“I get a whole bit? What about me don’t you know, Parrish?” He tore his gaze away from Adam’s face and actually inspected the cards. Ronan felt something unpleasant unfurl in his stomach when he saw what must have given Adam that look. The cards in the middle and on the right seemed unassuming enough. Blue skies in the background, just ordinary scenes. But on the far left–

“The _Devil_?”

Two nudes were chained to a post, demonic tails curling beside them. Above them sat a rotund, goat-horned demon, wings like a bat’s and an inverted pentagram upon his head. The background was black and the demon wielded a lit baton like a bludgeon. 

“Don’t freak out.” Adam rested his fingers against Ronan’s wrist, curling them against his vulnerable veins. “It’s not bad.” 

Ronan looked at him skeptically. “It fucking looks bad.”

“No, okay. I laid out those three cards to mean past, present, and future. The Devil’s in the past–“

“Great. So I only _used_ to be Satan.” If he sounded childish he didn’t care. There were some nights he wondered about he and Adam, the intrusive whisper in his thoughts that Adam could do better, that Ronan was bad for him at best and downright corrosive at worst. 

“Fuck. No.” Adam scrubbed a hand through his hair. “The Devil isn’t literally the devil, or any devil. It’s just– It’s _temptation_... Pure freaking temptation.” He was avoiding Ronan’s eyes. On impulse, or maybe just intuition, Ronan reached out and passed the back of his finger down Adam’s cheek. Adam startled, turning to him in confusion, but not quick enough. His cheek was hot. “I wanted you for a long time,” Adam said lowly, after a moment. “Even when I didn’t realise. And then when I thought it was dangerous for me.”

Ronan didn’t know what to do with that, the words ‘a long time’ rang again and again in his head and he wanted to throw something. “What changed?” Because something had to have changed. 

Adam shrugged. “Eventually I knew better.” He smiled when Ronan just raised a brow, uncomprehending. “You’re an asshole, but you’re good for me. I like being with you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

When Ronan had stepped out the back door earlier and joined Adam out here, he hadn’t been counting on this. He would’ve been happy to lie down nearby and hear the buzz of summer’s insects, leaving Adam to do his thing. Now that he’d heard those words pass Adam’s lips, he couldn’t go back. The sense that he was on borrowed time evaporated, the future spreading out instead.

As he stared, struck dumb, Adam’s smile grew wide and he leaned forward to press their foreheads together. Ronan let out a long breath. “Fucking hell.” Adam just hummed.

“Do you want to know the rest?” Adam asked after a minute. Ronan nodded, and Adam kissed him softly for a moment before pulling away and downing the rest of his coffee, long since cold.  
“Alright, so in the past I was lusting after you, or whatever.” He looked infinitely pleased at Ronan’s helpless laugh. “In the present, you’re the Two of Cups.” This card looked markedly more pleasant. Two people stood opposite one another beneath a lion’s head with wings, and clinked their goblets together. It looked like a bright day, blue sky and vivid colours. “This basically means that you’ve made a connection with someone complimentary to you. Me, I would assume. It’s the card of a good beginning, a good relationship.”

“Are you sure that one bit cardboard is telling you that?” Ronan teased.

“Hey, that’s just what it means. If I happen to agree that’s neither here nor there.” He reached and ran his hand up and down Ronan’s thigh, a touch just for the sake of touching. “And this one, in the future spot: Temperance. I don’t know if it’s about you or about us but Temperance is all about balance. It means that you’ll get what you need but it won’t be spoiled by being too little or too much. It’s a healthy card, peaceful. That’s what you have to look forward to.”

“Huh,” Ronan was a little surprised. “That’s oddly optimistic.”

“Like I said,” Adam leaned into him, “the cards just show you a possibility. If you decide you like it, it’s your sign to head towards it.”

Ronan scoffed derisively, and shifted to loop his arm around Adam’s shoulder. Even in the still warm summer night, it was comfortable. “I could have told you I wanted this to go well even without the damn cards.”

Adam smiled. “I know. Still, it’s nice to turn over a good card and realise for yourself how much you really want it.”

Ronan didn’t say anything. It had only been a few months, but he’d bet good money on what they had. Or at least, on how far he was willing to go to keep it as good as it had been so far. There was something enduringly right in being with Adam, and every hint he got that Adam felt the same was a clarion call to keep going. It would get difficult, of course, when Adam went away for college or when their interests pulled them in different directions. And they still had to deal with the issue of Ronan’s dreaming and what to do about their burnt up magic forest. But in the middle of it they were good. The fact that Adam had even set out a card for the future, and indirectly shown he counted on having one that included Ronan, was big enough that as they lapsed into silence, Ronan felt uncommon contentment well in his chest and settle there. 

“Are you doing gross things on the porch!?” Henry suddenly yelled out, shattering the silence, and poked his head out the living room window. “We’re going to start a game of Twister, you want in?”

“ _Fuck_ no,” Adam called back immediately, making Ronan laugh. Henry grinned wide at him, then seemed to take in their current position – Adam’s hand on his thigh, Ronan’s arm curled around him – and his smile grew softer before he ducked back into the house. 

Ronan turned his head and pressed a kiss to his hair, his hand finding Adam’s and linking their fingers.

The back door burst open and Blue crooked her head cheerily around the frame. “Come on, assholes. You had all summer to be all over each other, come hang out.”

“In a minute,” Adam said airily, and Blue made a disgusted noise at them, rolled her eyes and went back into the house.

Faintly they could hear her say, “They’re too busy sucking face and sighing. Dammit Gansey! Left foot on red!”

“I don’t even have to say anything now,” Ronan said quietly. “You’re sending everyone away before I can.”

Adam sighed. “We should go in. They just got back. But I don’t want to, yet.”

Ronan rubbed his hand up and down Adam’s arm. “Then what do you want?”

Adam sat up and looked him, his gaze dark and sparking, and Ronan had to resist the urge to swallow down his want. In a second, his empty coffee cup was being gently taken out of his hand and set aside. Ronan barely had time to look up before Adam’s lips were on his. 

This wasn’t the kiss of familiarity he’d gotten just before. This was hungry. This was a _you feel too good not to touch_ kiss. A _stay close to me_ kiss. An _I’m not going anywhere_ kind of kiss. Adam’s ridiculous hands came up to cradle his face, like he needed to feel him under his palms to know this was real. Ronan wrapped his arms around him and pulled Adam close, and they fell back to lie on the wood, Adam sprawled over him as their mouths worked. 

Time must have passed but Ronan couldn’t have said how. When they parted, lips red and breaths heavy, Adam’s thumb was still running over his cheek, passing back and forth.

Ronan cleared his throat. “So how often do you do tarot readings?”

Adam began to laugh uncontrollably, shaking over him, and Ronan caught his face to bring their mouths together again.

(They went back inside twenty minutes later with their cheeks red and hands clasped. Ronan carried their cups while Adam grasped the cards they’d eventually piled back together. Gansey looked at them fondly, even where he was contorted with Henry on the Twister mat. Blue threw a pillow at them, just so they knew she was happy for them.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! So much! Is the tarot nerd Adam or me? Who knows.
> 
> As always, kudos are LOVE, comments are LIFE, and either will absolutely make my day and keep me writing. 
> 
> If you're interested is watching my flail through adulthood, get angry at politics, and cry over fictional characters, catch me [tumblin](http://ridleymocki.tumblr.com/)


End file.
